Auckland, 2 Sept. /52. My Dear McLean, I received with much pleasure on Saturday your letter by the Overland Mail as well as a kind Note from Mrs. McLean. She cannot like your being so much away and it is a great drawback on your comfort and on the office you hold but it is at the present moment apparently a safer one to hold than most others in the Colony. You wail see by the proposed new Constitution that great changes are contemplated which will involve reductions of establishments and salaries of officers. I suppose that bye and by most Government Officers will do a little bit of farming or follow some other employment as they do in America as well as perform the duties of a Government situation. I see some of the Officials here are quaking already. All that I care about is the uncertainty it puts me in about my future operations. As for you they cannot do without you until all the land is bought from the Natives and there is enough of employment in that way to keep both you and your son after you busy till the day of his death. You will receive no answers to your application for the employment of a Clerk Surveyor etc. till next Mail as we are too busy on the departure of this one for the Colonel to attend to them. Excuse brevity. Yours truly, A. Sinclair.